


On Her Own

by Infiniteleft



Category: Love Live! School Idol Festival (Video Game), Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Gen, Growing Up, Light Angst, Loneliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:35:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26834548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infiniteleft/pseuds/Infiniteleft
Summary: College is a very scary thing. Ruby muses over the past, school, and u's.
Relationships: Kurosawa Dia & Kurosawa Ruby
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	On Her Own

**Author's Note:**

> There is no fluff to accompany this fic. Only delicious, delicious pain.

She knew she shouldn't be doing this, but Ruby couldn't help herself, after all this time. For about two weeks, she'd held strong before finally breaking down. The silence that her sister left behind was still overbearing, as much as she tried to fool herself otherwise. Hanging out with the others helped. But going home? It sucked.

Which was why she was standing in the room Dia had been in for the past eighteen years. It felt awfully lonely. She wondered if the room felt as sad as she did now that there was nobody to live in it.

She really shouldn't be doing this. If sis found out... The floorboards under Ruby's feet creaked. It didn't give her as much pause as it should've. As it would've, had it been any other time. But times were changing, and Ruby didn't want to let go.

The bedroom was as empty and hollow as her heart. Her sister's desk lay bare of all belongings, where it had been left for her father to eventually put away. That time hadn't yet come. Gingerly, she crept further into the room, looking for signs of life that Dia had left behind. While her room was impeccably tidy, Ruby _knew_ that there had to be some sort of trace here if she just knew where to look.

Ruefully, she then padded over to where the futon had been. It was packed away in the otherwise empty closet, waiting for her to come back and use it again. Ruby sat down. Leaning against the wall, she spotted the paler squares up on the wall and frowned. Which poster had left that behind, again? Even though Dia had rejoined Aqours, she'd never really redecorated her room like she used to have it.

Maybe that was why she was sitting here in secret, wondering about the past and future both. What had been left behind? Would she ever get her answers? For all her newfound strength, she longed for the easy comfort she'd always been given. Growing up sucked. Where in the world could there be solace?

She found it in the brighter patches of color on the walls, where sunlight hadn't been able to fade it away. Rising to her feet once more, she approached the walls. Tracing her fingers along the bottom edges, she closed her eyes and tried to picture the ancient posters that had hung here.

Eli. Her sister's beloved idol… if it hadn't been for Eli, where would they be now? It was u's that had drawn them all together in the end, wasn't it? u's and their interconnecting friendships…

Ruby opened her eyes. There. Faintly, an afterimage of the girl flickered through her vision, and in that fleeting second, Ruby thanked her for all she'd done for her and her sister.

She flopped back onto the futon. So this was the view her sister had, huh? With moonlight spilling into her room and over her bed… it was mesmerizing. Dreamy. How tired must they be? Very. Dia had long since been worn down to her very core by all the pressures she'd been put to, and Ruby felt exhausted just trying to keep up.

No wonder her sister was in a hurry to lead her new life.

A squeak came from her unwillingly as she leaned forward, hugging her knees. She would be coming back, Ruby told herself, and it did not help. This wasn't an ending. This was the start of something new for her sister, something she'd been preparing for for a long time. A business major; slated to take over for their father someday. She felt an ever so tiny grin peck at her lips, pride swelling at Dia's achievements.

Even before Dia had left, she'd felt kind of like a pendulum rocking back and forth between being excited for the changes awaiting them, and being afraid of losing what she had already. She loved her sister dearly, and felt the absence keenly. They would grow and change, and part of her wondered if she'd been holding Dia back.

There had been a lot of thoughts like those lately, but Ruby liked to think she was getting better at silencing them, even without Dia's help. For all of her faults, Ruby took strength in the sure-footed no-nonsense way her older sister had always carried herself. Unfortunately, it had lent its hand towards the isolation she knew the older girl felt, but all of Ruby's attempts to fix it went rather horribly awry. That, and she was often too scared to make much of a move anyway.

"Hey, sis," she found herself saying aloud in the darkened gloom as it hit her, "were you scared, too?"


End file.
